With just two ocean-based wind farms, the U.S. is far behind other nations when it comes to installed offshore wind capacity. There’s the five 6-megawatt turbines of Block Island, Rhode Island, generating enough electricity to power about 17,000 homes, and the first two 6-megawatt turbines of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. Compared with those 42 megawatts, Germany has 60,000 megawatts of installed offshore capacity, India has 42,000, Spain has 29,000, and the U.K. has 26,000. The Biden administration is determined to catch up and has called for 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind to be installed by 2030 in the relatively shallow waters of the Atlantic Coast’s continental shelf.
Currently, there are 18 U.S. offshore projects in various stages of development on the Atlantic Coast, with one of them, the 62-turbine, 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts slated to go operational in 2023. States have so far set their own targets of 46,000 megawatts of offshore wind in the Atlantic, but several of those goals extend well beyond 2030.
On the Pacific Coast, however, the continental shelf is typically narrow and drops off steeply into deep water. Instead of being anchored on piles driven into the seabed as on the Atlantic Coast, floating turbines are required, using various flexible anchors. California is preparing to lead the way.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an agreement last year to open the California coast for offshore wind development. In May, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced a proposed sale notice for leases off the Northern California and Central California coasts. Public comments on the proposal closed Aug. 1.
In response to state legislation passed in 2021 and a recent letter to regulators from Newsom calling on agencies to “up our game” on climate, the California Energy Commission (CEC) voted last Wednesday to adopt preliminary planning goals for installing 2,000 to 5,000 megawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030, and an “aspirational” 25,000 megawatts by 2045. That would be enough to power about 25 million homes by mid-century, and well above the 10,000-15,000 megawatts previously being considered. All part of the state’s decarbonization goals. The planning document was developed in coordination with federal, state, and local agencies as well as tribal governments, fisheries, and other ocean users.
As reported by Kavya Balaraman at Utility Dive, Rhetta deMesa, project manager with the commission, said agency staff know these goals may need updating as floating turbine technology develops and experience with early deployments is absorbed. “It is also important to emphasize that these planning goals are not procurement targets. Any future procurement authorization of offshore wind will have to go through all necessary resource planning, procurement, and permitting requirements,” she said.
On the commission’s website, CEC Chair David Hochschild noted, “These ambitious yet achievable goals are an important signal of how committed California is to bringing the offshore wind industry to our state. This remarkable resource will generate clean electricity around the clock and help us transition away from fossil fuel-based energy as quickly as possible while ensuring grid reliability.”
In March, the CEC signed off on a $10.5 million grant for renovations at the Port of Humboldt Bay to support offshore wind activities. When complete, the new Humboldt Bay Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Marine Terminal will be able to handle heavy cargo vessels, offshore wind floating platform development, and related activities.
WEEKLY ECO-VIDEO
GREEN takes
Scores of stories about killer heat waves engulfing much of the world have been written or broadcast on local and national media the past few months. But only a scattered few make mention that, as with other impacts of the climate crisis, the effects are felt unevenly. That point was made clear in the news this week by the First Street Foundation’s report on heat waves now and 30 years in the future. While mostly ignored elsewhere, reporters at The Washington Post included this in their coverage:
Treeless city neighborhoods packed with buildings, parking lots and asphalt roads, absorb and retain more heat than areas with tree-lined streets and parks. Scientists call this the urban heat island effect. Nationwide, this pattern reveals itself in city after city, concentrating heat in majority low-income Black and Latino neighborhoods that were designated as risky investments decades ago.
Today, about 64 percent of all Black people in the U.S. experience a dangerous heat wave, defined as more than three consecutive days of a heat index above 100 degrees. But that will increase to 79 percent in 30 years, making a population that is already more vulnerable to heat significantly more exposed.
Those areas of “risky investments” were determined by the pernicious practice of “redlining.” That’s been illegal since 1968, but the harmful effects are still with us. All the more reason why Democrats must focus in the coming year on passing the environmental justice portions of the Build Back Better Act that got lopped off its successor, the Inflation Reduction Act.
Along these lines, Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona has been traveling around the country trying to drum up support for the "Environmental Justice For All Act"—HR 2021. The bill would make changes in existing environmental laws to allow greater community input in the siting of polluting industrial and fossil fuel projects. But Republican opposition is fierce, as shown when the bill was marked up by the House Natural Resources Committee last month. Success for that bill and others will, of course, depend on hanging onto majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives. Yet one more reason to be working our butts off to beat the odds in November.
The idea that the world can power itself on 100% renewable sources has been, and still is in some quarters, viewed with deep skepticism. But as Mark Hutchins reports, there is a growing body of studies concluding that this can be done:
A group of energy researchers, led by Christian Breyer of Finland’s Lappeenranta University, has conducted an extensive review of this literature, going back to Bent Sorenson’s 1975 paper “Energy and Resources,” published in Science. The group notes that since 2010, the number of published studies showing that 100% renewable energy can be achieved by 2050 has grown by 27% each year.” ...
The review paper, “On the History and Future of 100% Renewable Energy Systems Research,” was recently published in IEEE Access. It charts the historic milestones in the research up to its present- day status, and additionally seeks to address the major criticisms that continue to be leveled at it, including the cost, intermittent generation, materials, and current requirement for fossil-fuel energy to power manufacturing of renewable energy, among others.
The paper also addresses the “institutional inertia” of large agencies. It singles out the International Energy Agency and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for particular criticism, on claims that they are slow to adopt the latest research demonstrating the possibilities of renewable energy technology.
green SHORTS
Electric bus orders surge, but deliveries lag. New Flyer, the largest transit bus manufacturer in North America, and Proterra, a bus manufacturer in my backyard of Burlingame, California, have reported a surge of orders for battery-electric buses for the second quarter of 2022. However, component shortages have caused a slowdown in deliveries. New Flyer reported deliveries of 59 battery and fuel-cell electric buses in and received orders for 325 zero-emission vehicles. The company now has a total backlog of 1,900 electric buses, according Brian Dewsnup, president of New Flyer’s parent company, NFI Parts. A shortage of microprocessors is the big hangup, Dewsnup said. “While overall supply chains are not seeing major improvements, it appears that we are through the worst of the disruption.” Proterra delivered 52 electric buses in the second quarter, a 30% increase over the first quarter, but down 4% year-over-year. The bipartisan infrastructure law makes $5.5 billion available over five years for transit agencies to buy or lease electric, hybrid, and fuel-cell electric buses under the Federal Transit Administration’s Low or No Emission Vehicle Program.
The Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change’s website contains an online timer showing how many years civilization has until it overshoots its “climate budget”—that is, the amount of carbon and methane pollution we can emit until we hit certain temperatures.
ECO-QUOTE
“For all of its benefits, this [Inflation Reduction Act] climate legislation makes a gross trade-off by requiring more oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska in exchange for renewable energy development. Communities that all too often have been considered disposable were again sacrificed. Once more, the heaviest work of all will fall on low-income communities and communities of color living along the fence-lines. The best way to be in solidarity with those communities is to help ensure that they don’t have to be in the struggle alone.”—Jason Mark, editor of Sierra magazine
ECOPINIONS
Who are the Inflation Reduction Act winners? By Brad Johnson at Hill Heat. “Rhiana Gunn-Wright, climate policy director at the Roosevelt Institute, notes that the ‘very good, very needed investments’ are wedded to ‘major harms.’ Quite frankly, as a black woman currently holding my sleeping black child, I simply cannot say that another bill that treats black, brown, and indigenous lives again as the price of admission for domestic, political progress is something where the good outweighs the bad. Although Senate Democrats claimed the bill has $60 billion for environmental justice priorities, Sylvia Chi, a senior strategist on federal policies and financing for Just Solutions Collective, ‘found just $47.5 billion in the bill.’ Furthermore, Giniw Collective founder Tara Houska asks, ‘if our communities are underwater or if our air is poisoned and we’ve got pipelines and mines and all the things that are destroying our lands actively, how is some investments in block grants supposed to help us?’”
How Progressives Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Inflation Reduction Act by Grace Segers at The New Republic. “Progressives aren’t the only members of the caucus who wish the Build Back Better Act they’d hoped to pass had come to fruition. Most Democrats had larger ambitions for their reconciliation bill. But there was a time in the very recent past when they thought they would get nothing at all: First, after Senator Joe Manchin said he could not vote for the Build Back Better Act in December, and then again in July when he appeared to break off negotiations for a smaller package. Congressional Democrats were therefore shocked and delighted when Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a deal on the Inflation Reduction Act. But progressives argue that the bill they ended up with could not have been written and passed without their advocacy. ‘There would be no Inflation Reduction Act without Build Back Better. And there would be no Build Back Better without the Progressive Caucus,’ said Representative Jamaal Bowman in a press conference by members of the caucus ahead of the passage of the bill.”
Every Dollar Spent on This Climate Technology Is a Waste by Charles Harvey and Kurt House at The New York Times. “The technology called carbon capture and storage is aptly named. It is supposed to capture carbon dioxide emissions from industrial sources and pump them deep underground. It was a big winner in the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress last week and signed into law by President Biden on Tuesday. What the technology, known as CCS, also does is allow for the continued production of oil and natural gas at a time when the world should be ending its dependence on fossil fuels. Of the 12 commercial CCS projects in operation in 2021, more than 90 percent were engaged in enhanced oil recovery, using carbon dioxide emitted from natural gas processing facilities or from fertilizer, hydrogen or ethanol plants, according to an industry report. That is why we consider these ventures oil or natural gas projects, or both, masquerading as climate change solutions.”
Why Are Fossil Fuel Companies Funding Climate Change Research? by Ilana Cohen at The Nation. “By funding university research, Big Oil helps shape the understanding of the solutions available for addressing the climate crisis to policy-makers, the media, and the world. Campaigners with Fossil Free Research are calling for a societal reckoning. The question now is whether the movement can push major research institutions like Harvard and Stanford—universities with prominent industry ties—to take action. Big Oil’s record as a bad-faith climate actor is well-documented. Last summer, the Greenpeace investigative news outlet Unearthed published undercover footage of an ExxonMobil senior lobbyist detailing the company’s nefarious playbook for heading off climate action under the Biden administration. Those revelations followed reports of top oil and gas giants spending approximately $200 million annually to block and weaken climate policy, and having a delegation larger than that of any country at the latest international climate conference, COP26.”
L.A. is spending tens of billions of dollars to make climate change and traffic worse by Michael Schneider at the Los Angeles Times. “Climate change impact is measured in two ways: vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions. For the billions that we will spend on new bus and rail service, as well as active transportation improvements, Metro estimates in a study it just published that by 2047 we will reduce vehicle miles traveled by 9.7 billion, resulting in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2.7 million metric tons of CO2. These massive reductions would result in much cleaner air for us all, and go a long way toward meeting our climate goals. However, just as Metro is spending tens of billions building rail and bus projects, it also plans to spend billions adding 363 miles of new highways and arterials. According to Metro’s own calculations based on state standards, this will increase vehicle miles traveled by up to 36.8 billion, and emit an additional 10.1 million metric tons of CO2.”
Taking Action on Climate Change Requires Coming Together by David Korten at Yes! “Over the span of my 85 years, I have had the joy and privilege of working with and celebrating people of widely varied cultures, genders, religions, and races. This includes living for 21 years in Africa, Latin America, and Asia working initially for the foreign aid establishment and later for civil society organizations on a mission to end global poverty. It also included periods of residence in Washington state, California, Florida, Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts. Of all the many people I have encountered, most, by far, were kind, caring, and ready—even eager—to help others, including strangers, in need. But we are being failed by the society we built. We cannot expect our dominant institutions to lead us to the transformation on which a viable human future depends. Change will come, and can only come from committed people mobilizing in common cause as a powerful social movement.”
ECO-TWEET
HALF A DOZEN OTHER THINGS TO READ (OR LISTEN TO)
The Climate Future Just Changed: Eight Predictions for 2030 by Todd Woody and Eric Roston at Bloomberg. “It’s a summer morning somewhere in the US in the year 2030. You get out of bed and boil water for coffee on the induction stovetop before checking the news: More than half of new cars sold in the US now are EVs. Rates of childhood asthma are down sharply, as researchers had been predicting. Coffee in hand, you step outside and unplug your car, then drive to the battery plant where you’re a technician. Maybe you’re even a union rep. Down by the slightly slower-rising shoreline, you pass the natural gas power plant that closed a couple of years ago. What are they going to do with it? Supposedly the area around there is a lot nicer than it used to be, with a big wetland park. ... This portrait of life in 2030 would have seemed like the hopeless dream of a climate optimist just a few weeks ago. Today it’s at least a little more plausible.”
Time’s up for the Colorado River, and a scary new phase begins by Eric Holthaus at Currently. “Time has run out for drought-stricken states along the Colorado River in the U.S. southwest, as talks aimed at coming to terms on a water-sharing plan have broken down. ‘Negotiations among the Colorado River’s Lower Basin states of Arizona, California, and Nevada have stalled,’ according to Luke Runyon, a journalist for a Colorado public radio station focused on the Colorado River. According to Runyon, that makes ‘a seven-state commitment to conserve 2-4 million acre-feet unlikely ahead of a federal deadline.’ That is 652 billion to 1.3 trillion gallons, about one-third of the river’s historic flow, roughly equivalent to all the water Arizona’s farmers use each year to grow alfalfa, a specialized type of hay, or about as much as Las Vegas uses in five years.”
As Drought Hits Farms, Investors Lay Claim to Colorado Water by Jennifer Oldham at Civil Eats. “If the Colorado state engineer’s office, its water court, and federal regulators were to approve RWR’s plan, it would mark the first time that private investors could ship water from an aquifer in one part of the state to a community in another. Yet the potential to profit from piping the scant resource to the rapidly expanding cities east of the Rocky Mountains is increasingly attractive to investors as drought and shortages drive up the price of water and Colorado’s population is expected to double by 2040. It’s a scenario that will test Colorado’s ability to balance water use between its agriculture industry—whose 38,900 farms and ranches generate about $47 billion a year in economic impact—and rapid population growth. To proceed, RWR must purchase water rights from farmers and ranchers, many descendants of families who settled Colorado’s oldest agricultural region in the mid-1800s.”
The Bureau of Land Management Lets 1.5 Million Cattle Graze on Federal Land for Almost Nothing, but the Cost to the Climate Could Be High by Georgina Gustin at Inside Climate News. “The hundreds of thousands of cattle dotting the vast sweeps and ranges of the West have become archetypal features of the American landscape, essentially entwined with a story the nation tells itself of cowboys and destiny. The BLM issues 18,000 grazing permits, covering 21,000 allotments across 155 million acres in 13 states—an area the size of California and Oregon combined. Though the department doesn’t release a head count, researchers and advocacy groups say those permits represent about 1.5 million heads of cattle. But for decades environmental groups and ecologists have argued that cattle are destroying the West’s arid pine and sagebrush-covered rangelands—the very landscape supporting a national mythology—turning thousands of acres into moonscapes. Livestock groups, meanwhile, argue the opposite, saying that cattle are critical for the health of that land. Now, the long standing conflict is getting amplified as climate change heats up the West and rangelands lose their ability to store heat-trapping carbon, in part because they’re being trampled and degraded by livestock, scientists say. Cattle are well known emitters of methane, through belching and manure. But in the arid and fragile West, they’re also destroying an important carbon sink, largely by churning up soil and vegetation.”
Video—America’s Dirty Divide: The racist history of toilets in America by Briana Flin at The Guardian. “America invested in sanitation systems throughout the 20th century—but it often left out communities of color, and they're still trying to catch up. This video explains how specific policies caused these inequities, and talks to some of the people who still lack proper sanitation systems in 2022.”
Study: Kids Born Near Fracking Sites 2-3 Times More Likely to Develop Leukemia by Kenny Stancil at Common Dreams. “The peer-reviewed study examined the relationship between residential proximity to unconventional oil and gas development and the risk of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common form of childhood leukemia. Researchers compared 405 children ages 2 to 7 who were diagnosed with ALL in Pennsylvania between 2009 and 2017 to a control group of 2,080 children without leukemia. Children with at least one fracking well within 1.24 miles of their birth residence were nearly twice as likely to develop the disease compared with those whose neighborhoods were free from such fossil fuel infrastructure. Some 17.3 million people in the United States, including nearly 4 million children, live within a half-mile radius of active oil and gas production, according to the Oil & Gas Threat Map.”
GREENBITS
• Saving Sumatran elephants starts with counting them. Indonesia won’t say how many are left • Drought in Zimbabwe is driving elephants closer to people. The consequences can be deadly • The Soviet Union once hunted endangered whales to the brink of extinction • Backyard hens’ eggs contain 40 times more lead on average than shop eggs • Buying an EV is about to be a pain in the ass, thanks to stricter tax credits • Baker signs major Massachusetts climate bill despite concerns over fossil fuel limits, other provisions • Judge Restores Coal Lease Moratorium on Public Lands That Was Undone Under Trump • The World Will Soon Need More Cooling Than Heating • Wolves Have Personalities That Impact Their Ecosystem •